


the woods are lovely, dark and deep

by swinterswonderland



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Minor Bow/Glimmer (She-Ra), Pre-Canon, The Whispering Woods is kinda sentient
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-22
Updated: 2020-07-17
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:20:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 16,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24856747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swinterswonderland/pseuds/swinterswonderland
Summary: A kit finds herself alone in the woods.(AU where Catra ends up in the care of the Whispering Woods instead of the Horde)
Relationships: Bow & Catra (She-Ra), Catra & Whispering Woods, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 103
Kudos: 191





	1. miles to go before i sleep

**Author's Note:**

> First fanfic I wanted to write since forever! This was born from my love of Jack London's dog novel. Chapter titles are based on Robert Frost's classical poem "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening"! 
> 
> Current update schedule: at least once a week (Friday/Saturday)
> 
> I'm not sure how long this will take. Hope you guys enjoy!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A kit is alone and lost

She remembered red. And **_s h a d ow s_**. 

It’s been minutes, hours (?) since she had been swallowed up by the forest ( _she knows this is a forest because of the picture books her mama showed her_ ), and yet she keeps her pace, stumbling deeper and deeper into the woods. She doesn’t care where her legs were taking her as long as it brought her further away from the the dark tendrils that had torn through Sir Izad and left him ragdoll-ed and glassy-eyed on the ground ( _she chokes a sob_ ). She feels them raise the fur of her neck, feels them threatening to curl around her body and squeeze the essence out of her, until the woods shift disorientingly. 

All of a sudden, the **_dark-slithering-shadow_ ** behind her disappears. The tendrils have lost their hold on her. In her relief, she finally trips on a root and stumbles down.

A whine rips out of her. She cries, alone, for her mama and papa to find her, for Sir Izad to magically reappear and tell her it was all a prank, for _anyone_ to scoop her up and take her away from the shadows.

But nobody comes.

***

Eventually, hunger drives her to pick herself up. 

Under the thick canopy of the trees, days could be as dark as the nights in the clear-skied desert. Her eyes adjust well, enough that she could follow her ears and spot the skittering of small rodents over the branches of the tall, tall trees. Enough for her to hunt ( _like how Sir Izad taught her in the gardens, except it isn’t fun anymore, not with the gnawing in her belly_ ). 

When her body tires, she looks for an abandoned hollow large enough for her small thinning body in a tree and low enough for her to climb down easily the next day. For some reason, she always manages to find one before the trills and chirps of the forest creatures fall silent. She thanks the woods before she curls up and drifts off to a light and uneasy sleep.

***

A buzz under her skin starts whenever she stays in one hollow for too long. An instinct, planted in her gut the day she found _red_ and **_s h a d ow s_** , urges her to move, to never let herself get caught.

Sometimes, she hears the synchronized footsteps of a small squadron, a shout of command echoing from the trees, and her heart stills. But before it could get alarmingly loud, before she could bolt away, the noise always fades away, as if it was all just a sound-mirage.

The woods remain silent for the rest of the day, and she moves.

***

How long has she been in the belly of the beast?

She doesn’t know. It’s getting harder and harder to remember mama’s face, so she unsheathes a claw and tries to draw on the dirt mama’s velvet ears, her fierce smile, her long wild mane. Her papa was big, and unlike mama, he kept his mane short, just enough to fit into his helmet. She tries to impress his gentleness next to mama. In between the two figures, she draws herself, small, messy-haired, and happy.

She stares at the picture she made, and something in her aches, a hunger pang for something. A hug from mama, a kiss from papa. Their shades are slipping away from her mind.

The silhouette of the thick overgrowing canopy presses around her, as if to comfort her. She had run out of tears days ago, so she gets up silently and leaves the scribble.

***

“Catra, dearie, what are you doing out here all by yourself? Adora is usually with you.”

She is startled. It’s been so long since she has heard spoken words.

A scent of the berries the woods sometimes offers to her. A wrinkled face. Large expectant eyes framed with thick glasses. Bushy lavender hair. She knows she has never met this stranger before, but the old woman acts as if they were old friends.

She doesn't know whose names those are, Catra and Adora, so she disregards them. It takes her awhile to find the right response and shape her unpracticed mouth. “What?” her voice comes out rough and scratchy. She eyes the long broom ( _a potential weapon_ ) the old woman holds on one hand and hesitates to come closer. 

“Well, whatever the case, you’re late,” the old woman chipperly barrels on despite her confusion, “Adora can catch up with us. Come with old Razz for now!”

The old woman motions to grab her paw, and immediately, her hackles raise. She hisses, but the old woman continues to ignore her discomfort. “It’s a good thing I was able to find enough berries! Madame Razz is going to make berry pies for Mara today, and you, Catra dearie, will help me.”

At the mention of ‘pie’, her mouth waters and suddenly, she is thrust back to Before. A memory of sneaking into the kitchens with papa during lazy afternoons to steal _pie_. It comes so suddenly that it knocks her breath away and, along with it, her hostility. 

Razz, with her unkempt hair and sweet scent, does not resemble the **_dark-slithering-shadow_** , so she lets the old woman grasp her wrist with a gnarled and body hand and together they walk deep into the woods.

***

She eats a whole pan of pie. It’s been so long since she has felt so full.

Madame Razz did most of the work in baking the pie (her only job was to crush the berries into a pulp with her newly-scrubbed paws), but the old woman fusses over her regardless, all but ordering her to sit down on a stool to rest. Before long, Madame Razz sets a warm cup of water with funny-smelling leaves in front of her and sits at the other end of the table.

They spent the rest of the afternoon like that, Madame Razz talking about things she does not completely understand while she just sits still and gives one-word answers.

***

For all that it sated her craving for warmth and safety, for all that it reminded her of Before, she still refuses Madame Razz’s offer to stay in the hut for the night. The thought of sleeping close to another person, of letting her guard down, almost elicits a strangled hiss out of her. Her whole body tenses.

Madame Razz does not insist, and, simply smiling, lets her go with an open invitation for her to visit the hut anytime. At that, her tail stops lashing, her body slowly relaxes, and she says, “thank you”.

Night falls by the time she finds a tree hollow that satisfies her. Crawling into the hollow, she rests her eyes on the small roof of Madame Razz's hut. She dreams of pies and berries.


	2. dark and deep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a kit finds a new prey and starts a lifelong habit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter just ended up becoming longer than I thought it would be. I had to google so many things.

For all the fear she now has of shadows, they have proven themselves her greatest ally. Under their darkest protection, she could sneak past the larger beasts of the woods. With their silent blessing, she could stalk her prey for miles, unseen. Her mane grows wilder by the day; its size has been disrupting her stealthwork, so the cover the shadows provide freely is very much appreciated.

Madame Razz had offered to cut her mane short during one of their baking sessions ( _after stray bits of dough stuck to it persistently_ ), but she refused. Though troublesome, it does a good job of making her look bigger. Useful for intimidating other predators.

She’s been tracking a particular four-legged grass-eater ( _sort of like a camel,_ she figured) for the better part of the day. Picking up the trail from a nondescript waterhole, she had followed its scent ( _the trees shielded it from the wind_ ) and hoofprints ( _still fresh, it hasn’t rained in days_ ) winding through the undergrowth of the forest floor. Normally, she would steer clear from such a large target, but a smaller set of hoofprints accompanying the larger depressions clued her in to the presence of its child, something she is more than capable of taking down.

A rustle of leaves, her ear twitches, she stills. Beyond her was a clearing, a rare discovery in the ever-shifting woods. Tall, tall grass reaching up a bit past her chin spring up across the clearing and obstruct her view. Automatically, she quickly scales the nearest tree. 

She spots her target at the other side of the green sea nosing through the weeds along with its parent.

She silently drops back down to the ground and crouches into the dirt on all fours. Slowly, carefully, quietly, she stalks through the clearing, using the sprouting weeds as a cover. She hears the grass-eaters sifting through the foliage gently, unhurriedly. She’s close.

She breaks into a sprint. The quick and sharp rustling of the grass-stalks from her movements must have alerted the parent grass-eater by now. It quickly abandons its foraging and bolts away, but no matter, she is not the goal. 

The younger creature, slower and less experienced, freezes. Claws out, she pounces.

 _A whistle of air from her left_ , her ears alert her, and she quickly drops, flattening her body to the ground. A good thing, because an arrow whizzes above her head a moment later. She snaps her head back to look at where she expected her hard-earned prey to be, only to find empty space. 

She silently growls in frustration, then sharpens her ears. Whatever had shot the arrow might still be nearby.

She hears the trees rustling in amusement, to her greater annoyance. And faint, receding footsteps. Too far for an attack.

With no sign of immediate danger, she gets up and stomps to where the arrow landed. Picks it up. Turns it over. Takes a deep whiff. She retraces its trajectory and finds sloppy impressions on the ground of a pair of boots only slightly larger than her own footprints ( _a human kit?_ ).

Looks like she has a new prey.

***

After he is sure that the monster in the clearing isn’t chasing him, eight-year-old Bow slows down his sprint into a walk, and then adds a slight skip to his gait. He is proud, very proud, that he helped that poor fawn escape the clutches of that wild-maned beast. 

“I hope you get to live for a long time, Mr. Deer,” Bow says out loud, solemnly.

It is getting late, with the daylight filtering through the canopy cooling down to a sleepy orange. He needs to reach his super secret cache ( _to hide his bow and quiver_ ) soon if he wants to have enough daylight to find his way home. He’s been through this part of the Whispering Woods before, so he lets his feet lead him on, climbing past gnarled roots and hopping over untamed gutters. With the efforts of his dad and his eldest brothers, no beast nor bandit have frequented this area for a long time now. 

And yet.

A vague sense of apprehension, of impending danger. He feels something under his skin crawling, as if the air around him has chilled. Pins and needles trail down his back, as his heartbeat haltingly murmurs, ‘ _walk faster_ ’. He doesn’t know why his nerves are running away from him, now of all times, until he notices:

He can’t hear anything. No chirps, no rustling, no trills.

He picks up his pace, in a bid to escape this strange, cold silence, but the further he walks, the denser the foliage grows around him. Its oppressive shadows embrace his small frame, and that gets him running. 

As if out of nowhere, a root trips him. His cry of surprise, small and weak, pierces the silence. He frantically looks for anything that could’ve heard him, only to see nothing but darkness beyond the gnarled and twisted trees. That would have calmed him, even if just a little, but he can't help but notice that _t_ _hose trees are looking at him_. 

All around him, wrinkled faces with dark pits for eyes are toothlessly smiling at him. And beyond the paralyzing circle he finds himself in, a pair of mismatched glints, ice-blue-and-feral-yellow, appears.

He whimpers. He prays for his dads, his siblings, or even Mr. Deer, to find him. 

_But nobody came._

A shrieking howl, sharp and loud, cuts through his frozen heart. And finally, _finally_ , his body snaps out of its stupor. He scrambles away, screaming, and throws himself out of the woods.

***

The trees rustle in amusement again, and this time, a laugh, clear and childish, rings with them.

***

It was another week before Bow’s dads allowed him to go out. In hindsight, screaming into the house about a monster out to get him with his archery set at hand was not a good idea. They confiscated his weapons ( _for his own safety,_ they claimed) and assigned him more readings on the natural fauna of the Whispering Woods ( _for his peace of mind_ , they also claimed).

Luckily, he still has a spare set stashed in his super secret hideout, so he grabs that ( _sneakily_ ) along with a thick bundle of arrows and goes to his favorite clearing. Well-hidden, little-to-no undergrowth, and no permanent residents, it’s a perfect place for him to practice archery.

He sets his bundle of arrows down and pins a large sheet of paper on one of the few trees in the clearing. On it, he had crayoned a bullseye and an angry face with horns and red leathery wings ( _to stand for the Evil Horde_ ) in the center.

Standing back, he starts shooting arrows. Dull thwacks echo through the clearing as they bury themselves into the tree. All too soon, Bow’s quiver runs out of ammo, so he turns to reload it, only to find his supplies missing.

“Strange,” he says to no one in particular, “I could’ve sworn I put them here.” He looks around, and finds one arrow lying on the ground a little ways off from where he was standing. He goes to pick it up, and notices another arrow further away. “Maybe the wind blew it away? Or a wild animal.”

And off he goes, following the trail of scattered arrows, which, unnoticed by Bow, is leading him into a suspiciously eerie portion of the woods.

***

A boyish scream echoes through the air.

It’s so fun to mess with the boy, she snickers.

***

She spends the next few days stalking the stupid boy. She burns hole into him with her eyes and watches him shiver. She makes shrieking howls right before he shoots his arrows and delights in his startled jumps. She even swipes some of the snacks he keeps in his bag ( _her nose, the last bastion of her memories from Before, identifies them as_ candy _, and immediately her mouth waters_ ) and scatters the rest of his belongings across the clearing.

Today, she is lounging on a tree branch, three tree-bounds away from the boy’s clearing for her ( _she has taken to traveling through the treetops to leave no pawprint on the ground_ ). She doesn't know if he’s going to visit today, but that’s fine. She can just spend the whole day munching from the pouch of candy she stole yesterday while thinking more ways to freak the boy out. 

She is settling to do just that, when the boy’s voice rings, nervous and stuttering, through the clearing, “Oh sacred beast of the woods,” he calls aloud, “I come to you with an offering.” 

She looks up from her pouch and sees him at the edge of the clearing carrying a sizable sack. He sets it down at the center, before untying its topknot to reveal its contents: candy.

 _A lot of candy_ , her mind comments. 

And immediately, her guard is up. She does not go to the pile of candy, even as the boy’s fading footsteps tell her he has left. She waits for a long time, silently hopping from tree to tree, meticulously scanning the surroundings with all her senses. When she is finally sure that she is truly alone, she drops down to the ground and races to the candy before any other creature can take them. 

Excitedly, she looks into the sack and sees a buffet. Her mouth waters at the thought of eating it all.

A whistle in the air ( _an arrow?_ ) immediately alerts her to duck. _Trap!_ her mind screams, as she tries to scramble away. But alas, a small _‘pop’_ later, she is bound by a net, her limbs pinned against her body. She thrashes around in a bid to free herself, to no avail.

“Hah! I caught you! With my new net arrow! Which worked!” a voice ( _the stupid arrow boy’s_ , she snarls) cheers. From afar, she sees that he had emerged from the undergrowth and has been dancing in victory. 

He makes his way towards her tangled form, until she is face to face with his well-worn boots. She hisses at him and would’ve tried to claw his face off if she wasn’t tied down.

***

Fluffy, pointy ears. Fluffy mane. Fluffy tail. She’s so…

“Cute!” Bow blurts out. He would’ve reached down to pet her mane if she wasn’t bristling at him. 

At the mention of the word, the monster that had been tormenting him for the past few days ( _a kitten!_ ) shoots him a fiercer glare, offended. She yowls, “ _Who are you calling cute!?_ ” and thrashes around harder. 

Bow gasps. “You can talk! You’re a- a talking cat!” _Amazing!_ “Even your voice is cute!” She bares her teeth at that comment.

Cautiously (and a bit more boldly), he circles around the kitten, looking at her from all angles. She looks like any other kid ( _except for the cat-like features and the dull maroon tatters on her_ ), slightly shorter than he is if he ignores her bushy mane. 

_No immediate danger,_ he concludes. “Okay, I’ll let you go now,” he says slowly. Her ears perk up in interest. 

And then he continues, “But! You have to promise not to hurt me.” He pauses, then adds, “Or steal my things. Or scare me again.” _Aaaand she’s glaring at him again_.

The kitten growls ( _so adorable!_ ). “Why should I even listen to you? Let me go now,” she says, “and I won’t scratch your eyes out.”

He finds it hard to take her threat seriously, but he forces himself to consider her sharp claws. He mentally sorts through all his bargaining chips. “I’ll let you keep the bag of candy?” he offers. At her unimpressed look, he quickly adds, “Uuuh, and I’ll give some more candy every time we meet? I’ll even bring my chocolate with me!”

At the mention of chocolate, the kitten stills, and her face finally shifts to an emotion beyond the range of anger: confusion, recognition, and… something else. “Chocolate,” she says slowly, as if tasting the word. 

Silence. She takes a long time to consider. Then her eyes sharpen. “Fine. Swear you’ll give me candy, and I’ll stop making you pee your pants.”

Ignoring the last few words, Bow beams. _Success!_ “Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick an arrow in my eye,” Bow swears, solemnly, as if he was making an oath to Queen Angella herself. 

He takes out an arrow from his quiver and moves slowly, careful not to startle her with the weapon. With the arrow’s sharp head, he cuts out a hole in the net for her to wiggle out. She dusts herself off.

And immediately, she throws the net at him. It hits his face. “That’s for trapping me, arrow boy!” she hisses, before taking the sack of candy and scampering back to the cover of the woods.

Bow peels the net off of his face hurriedly. Then, before she can move out of earshot, he quickly blurts out his next question, “Hey! Do you have a name I can call you?” 

Only silence meets his words. No sound from the woods, except for the faint breeze carrying the chirps and trills of distant creatures.

***

She wracks around her head for the answer, but she can’t find it, not anymore. _She can’t remember what her mama and papa used to call her._

A faint despondence, distant, wells up in her, but she shakes it off. She settles for Madame Razz’s strange nickname.

“Catra. My name is Catra,” she replies to the arrow boy, and lets the breeze carry her voice.

***

“ _Catra_.”

 _Awww, her name has ‘cat’ on it. Even her name is_ cute, he coos, mentally because he doesn’t want to break the fragile thing he now has with Catra. 

“I’m gonna be friends with you, Catra! Just you wait!” he shouts into the woods, loud and proud, before he turns around and marches off to his home. No scary monster bothers him the whole way back.

***

The breeze titters at her, repeating the arrow boy’s declaration. Catra groans in response.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: baby deer can't help but freeze at the sign of danger. It's how they (sadly) defend themselves from predators.
> 
> With her love for chaos and mischief, Catra was destined to be a creepy cryptid in the woods who freaks people out for the lolz. Bow grew up in the Whispering Woods, so it's only natural for him to be her very first victim.
> 
> Too bad I'm not that well-versed with horror. It ain't my favorite genre, that's for sure, so writing this chapter was a bit difficult.
> 
> I based Bow's attitude towards Catra from 1) his canon reaction to Catra during the space trip, 2) his reaction to Swift Wind talking, and 2) Steven Universe's reaction to Peridot after he unbubbled her. Steven and Bow are both cinnamon rolls that will find even the scariest eldritch abomination cute. 
> 
> What do you guys think of this chapter? :)


	3. whose woods these are, i think i know

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a kit gets to know her friend better. also, happy birthday.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> all hail the word vomit

Tomorrow, Catra will be seven years old. At least, that’s the number Bow and she had agreed on ( _“You’re shorter than me, so you have to be younger!” Bow insisted_ ). She doesn’t remember how many birthdays have passed since she got lost. In the woods, she only has the rhythm of the moons and the wilderness to count on, and she hasn’t exactly been keeping track.

She didn’t even know hers was coming up until Bow asked her for it.

(He exploded the moment she pulled out the date from the dusty corners of her mind.

“ _Ohmygosh!_ Your birthday is next week!? Oh man, I have to start planning for your present.” Bow paced around the clearing, panic on his steps. Catra perked up at the word _present_. “Do you like cake? I can make you cake! But my dads banned me from the kitchen right now after I mixed my prototype bomb there. Maybe I can give you a bow, instead, so I can teach you how to shoot!” And on and on he went.

When all was said and done, he promised to give her a present in two weeks. At that declaration, a strange warmth bubbled in her. She put on a disinterested face, though, and instead told him _his softness_ _would get him eaten by a bug-beast one of these days._ )

Catra vaguely recalls how she used to spend her birthdays Before. Something about candles, lots of wrapped-up boxes, and hugs?

(Right after her time with Bow, she decided to visit Madame Razz for her birthday. Normally, _if the woods didn’t shift too much_ , the hut was three days away by foot from Bow’s clearing, so she set a lax pace, catching rodents when she was hungry, detouring to find waterholes when she was parched, napping when she felt lazy. All the while, she mentally took note of the rising and setting of the moons to make sure she was on schedule.)

She spends the day before her birthday hunting for two large hares. Easy enough kills to fill her carnivorous appetite for her day-long stay with Madame Razz. 

The next morning, belly sated with meat, she arrives in front of the hut just as Madame Razz is setting off for the woods.

“Catra, dearie! Right on time,” Madame Razz cheerily says. “Happy birthday! My, you’ve grown taller than I am,” she comments, despite the fact that Catra still has to crane her head to look at Madame Razz’s eyes.

Catra had never told Madame Razz about her birthday, but she does not question how the old woman knows. Madame Razz says strange things, some eerily true and others… 

“ _Loo-Kee,_ stop bothering Catra! Can’t you see it’s her birthday today? Run along now!” Madame Razz shoos away a speckle of dust next to her, before she huffs in annoyance, “I hope Adora gets here soon. That girl’s always so late!” 

They spend the whole morning picking berries in the woods. They easily find an orchard of berries, a generous platter of red, blue, and green bursting through each shrub. Still, it takes a long time for them to fill up their baskets, partly because they have to sift through the bushes to pluck the good berries, partly because Catra keeps snacking from her own basket.

“The woods are being awfully nice today,” Catra mutters. Temperamental, the woods are always twisting around, to her excitement and chagrin. Sometimes, she stumbles upon a buffet of sweet treats. Other times, she wakes up to a spore vortex on her face. Today is one of her lucky days.

“Ha! The Whispering Woods are always generous when it comes to you, dearie. It simply adores you,” Madame Razz cackles. “It’s been doting on you ever since you came here!”

Catra raises an eyebrow. “If it loves me so much, why did it trap me in a fog for three days straight?” _horrible experience for her eyes, nose, and limbs_ “Or led me into a den of bug-beasts?” _she had to scavenge for replacement clothing after that_ “Or had flying rats invade my tree-den while I was asleep?” _she fell, face-first, onto the ground and had a bruise on her forehead for days_.

“Well, I didn’t say the Woods were tame, silly!” the old woman titters. “It’s as wild as the creatures it houses, including you,” she winks at Catra, who rolls her eyes. “Of course it’s going to be prickly from time to time!”

Catra shrugs dismissively. “Whatever. As long as the thing doesn’t kill me in my sleep, I don’t care,” she says, even though deep inside she _does_ care. After all, the woods had rescued her when she needed it the most ( _what could have happened to her if the_ **dark-slithering-shadow** _had actually caught her?_ ). From then on, it has provided her with the _opportunity_ to survive, to thrive by her own strength. Game she has to hunt for. Tree-dens she has to search for. Safety she has to work for.

It is a rough life, but it is a life she can call her own. 

Harsh though the woods may be, Catra can grudgingly admit that the woods have given much more than it has demanded. It has leased to her a sprawling land as her playground. It has plied her with a shade of companionship ( _just enough to keep her from feeling too lonely_ ) in the form of teasing titters and kind gestures. It has even led her to the likes of Madame Razz and Bow.

She doesn’t know why the woods care for her, why they’re _kinda-friends_ , but she is thankful all the same.

She tries to hold onto this sentiment as a fuzzy worm falls from the canopy above onto her mane. _So… thankful_ , she grounds out mentally as she glares at the trees. She plucks the worm out with her claws, careful not to directly touch it, before flinging it to a faraway bush.

Madame Razz grins at her, “See? That is love!”

Catra gives her an unimpressed look. Madame Razz cackles at that. She grabs Catra’s wrist, just as the old woman did all years ago. This time, Catra is not bothered, used to these antics by now.

“I will show you something,” Madame Razz guides Catra’s hand and places it on the grass. They sit on their heels. “Close your eyes, dearie, and _reach for the magic of the Woods with your heart_.”

If she didn’t respect Madame Razz at all, if she ( _lonely and companion-starved_ ) hadn’t been _talking_ to the woods, Catra would’ve scoffed at the vague, arbitrary directions. 

But she _does_ , and she _has been_ , so she closes her eyes and digs, casting herself through her hand and into the earth. For the first few moments, she feels nothing special; she almost moves to dismiss the whole endeavor.

Until, she finds… a presence, large, distant and muted. It tugs at everything around her, from the smallest blade of grass to the largest and oldest trees. She realizes that it is a fragment of this giant with whom she, on her solitary journeys, has been grumbling to, shouting at, snickering with, pleading to.

Instinctively, she knows that it could shift at any moment into a raging storm and lay waste with its fierce anger, but right now, from across the gap that separates them, the giant is _smiling_ at her, with the softness of lazy afternoons, with satisfaction of a fresh meal, with the optimism of Bow’s friendship, with the playful twinkle of Madame Razz’s strangeness. And she can’t help but bask in it.

“Huh,” a break from the silence, “I guess you’re right,” Catra quietly acquiesced to Madame Razz.

Madame Razz keeps beaming at her. “Of course I am, silly! I’ve been with the Woods for a long time, after all,” the old woman says as she lets go of Catra’s wrist and stands up. Catra follows suit, albeit reluctantly. “I’ve never seen it so taken with anyone besides Mara.” 

At the mention of the name, Madame Razz gasps, “Oh, that reminds me! We need to get more berries so I can make a second pie for Mara. Ol’ Razz’s memory is not what it used to be,” she lightly scolds her self with a hit to her head from her long broom. “Quickly, dearie, time's a-wasting!” 

_Mara_ , _Loo-Kee, Adora._ Catra wonders if she will ever see these invisible friends of Madame Razz’s.

They go back to work, quick hands skillfully picking plump and vibrant berries. Madame Razz rambles on about herbs, magic, stars, and trees while Catra hums. Catra might not get much of Madame Razz’s words, but she finds the old woman’s chatter soothing, so she doesn’t bring out her snark ( _like she would’ve with Bow’s nerdy ramblings about his latest inventions_ ).

***

When they have completely filled up their baskets ( _and then some_ ), they go back to the hut with their sizeable haul and start baking, with Madame Razz preparing the crust and Catra crushing the berries. Two pies are ready by noon-time. 

One pie is left on the windowsill for Mara, while the other is placed on the kitchen table along with two steaming cups of tea. They dig in.

***

Later, after the windows of Madame Razz’s hut have finally darkened, Catra climbs down from her tree-perch above the hut. She softly lands on the ground, and finds a spot in the clearing to lay down on her belly. Tufts of grass tickle her face. Arms and legs spread out, she closes her eyes and reaches out for the sleepy giant beneath the earth.

She stays up the whole night, whispering to the Woods, and eventually falls asleep on the grass.

***

She spends another three days trailing after Madame Razz to know more about the magic of the Woods.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This piece was a challenge to do because 1) I needed to balance the portrayal of the Woods (nice enough that a wild child can, you know, survive on her own, but at the same time harsh enough because it's the wild, man), 2) describing magic in the eyes of a child hurts my head, 3) how do children talk???
> 
> Other than that, it was a joy to explore what Catra has gained and lost! On one hand, the Woods gave her the freedom to build herself up. With no Shadow Weaver grinding her self-esteem to nothing, Catra can be proud of herself, that she's actually thriving in the woods. Horde Catra would've never been satisfied with that kind of life. She would've always looked for Shadow Weaver's approval. On the other hand, Catra has no human contact 80% of her time? In the Horde, Catra and Adora were always together. In the Woods, she may have Razz and Bow, but she only meets them once in a while. Most of the time, she's moving through the Woods, either for food or peace of mind. Sure, she can talk to the Woods, but that's not a substitute for human interaction.
> 
> Catra staying up all night to whisper about, you know, whatever is a reference to her talking about her sleepovers with Adora in the Horde. Nice that she has something to talk to, but sad that she doesn't have a true BFF anymore :(
> 
> What do you guys think of this chapter?


	4. his house is in the village, though (pt. 1)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a kit finds a community

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the original chapter was so long I had to cut it into two parts smh
> 
> Thanks to fallensummer for proofreading this chapter!

The buzz under her skin, the compulsion to flee, gradually fades as seasons pass until one day, it never comes back. It is as if the monster that had been snapping at her heels has finally grown tired of chasing her. She relaxes, little by little, and her breaths come by more easily.

She does not settle, though, not in Madame Razz’s hut, not in Bow’s clearing, not anywhere else. She might never ~~_want to_~~ get used to having another person nearby.

( _She does not want to depend on something that can be ripped away from her at a moment’s notice_ )

So, despite the isolation ( _because of it_ ), she keeps moving. Besides, the Woods have so much to offer, much more than what she has seen so far. She wants to explore every twisted corner of the Woods, find treasure in its deepest, dankest underbellies, and test her claws with its most fearsome beasts.

(When she is ready, the Woods will oblige her)

***

Another perk to her wandering: she gets to mess with the occasional straggler.

Sometimes, she ‘misplaces’ small trinkets while they’re asleep, hiding it somewhere in their camping grounds. She would come back the next morning to observe their frustration as they groggily stumble.

The small critters— _mice, birds, lizards_ —of the Woods have also proven to be fantastic props for her pranks. Spiders, especially, are the best tools against travelers in herds. She would find a large ( _non-venomous, duh_ ) specimen still attached to its web and carefully cast it down from her perch onto someone’s shoulder. That never fails to send the whole band into a panic. Even after she fishes the spider back up into the canopy, the travelers would remain paranoid, persistently looking over their shoulders throughout the rest of their stay in the Woods.

(She tried the same trick on Madame Razz once, and all the old woman did was pet the damn spider and exclaim, “ _Loo-Kee!_ When did you get so big?”)

Sometimes, when the Woods is in the right mood, it joins her. It sets down a fog, a chill. It thickens its foliage to block the skylight from seeping into its floor. It twists itself into a maze, an anomaly in space, and leads the straggler deeper and deeper into its belly.

Its antics never fail to wind her victims up. They end up tense, all stiff, shaking limbs, like a bowstring pulled too far. She is only too eager to get them to snap.

The priceless faces of her victims always send her laughing. The really good ones, she commits their frenzy into the pages of the sketchbook Bow had given her for her eighth birthday. 

***

Today, she traces the footprints of her latest victim (who had screamed in rage after he ‘accidentally’ tripped into a mud puddle) and finds herself at the edge of the Woods for the first time. She is perched on the branch of a tree, hidden within its crown of leaves. Peeking through, she spies people ( _hooved, long-eared, with short antlers_ ) milling around a loose collection of funny-looking mushroom huts. Her victim’s footprints lead into one of the larger huts near the center of the settlement. A big board with unfamiliar squiggles is propped on said hut’s roof.

Trepidation, it gurgles in her belly, like she had eaten something bad the night before, at the thought of stepping beyond the boundary of the Woods, but she is _curious_. She has never seen so many people in one place before.

She looks to the Woods in askance. All she sees is a small horn-billed bird perched on a neighboring branch. 

_Scared?_ its unblinking gaze mockingly questions. At the challenge, she hisses, and the creature flies away. She huffs. _She’s no coward_.

Resolutely, she drops down to the ground on all fours, then, she steps out of the shadow of the Woods, cautiously, one paw at a time. She waits for anything to happen, ears up and tail twitching.

A beat of nothing. She gives the air a sniff ( _fire-smoky, floral-sweet, sweat-salty; nothing suspicious_ ) before standing up on her hind legs and stepping into the settlement.

***

Some of the residents give her a strange ( _sad_ ) look, but no one bothers her. She walks around, looking at these hooved people talking, walking, carrying. They are all at ease. She sees a band of children ( _they’re as big as she is, but for some reason, they look impossibly younger_ ) running underfoot, playfully chasing each other ( _tag?_ ). All the while, adults keep an eye out for them.

One of the children, a girl, trips, and lands knee-first on the ground. She winces, a scrape on her leg. Immediately, a woman approaches her and starts fussing over the wound. 

Catra wonders what it’s like to have someone around all the time. She looks away.

She is not used to the chatter bubbling, the rhythm of so many hoofsteps clopping around her. So unlike the ambient silence of the Woods, the noise of the settlement sets her ears abuzz. It suffocates her.

***

She wanders into the heart of the settlement, a large space encircled by imposing mushroom-huts. Long wooden tables, holding an assortment of trinkets and _food_ , sprout around her like weeds. Behind them, more of those hooved people stand at attention as others pause to look at the displays.

Her nose guides her to one table overflowing with baskets and baskets of sweet-smelling fruits and vegetables. She tiptoes to let her eyes take in the colorful collection before her, most of which she had never seen before in the Woods. 

A [long, green ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZliK29DXWg) [ _thing_ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZliK29DXWg) [ rolls into her peripheral](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZliK29DXWg), and immediately, her body recoils from it with a hiss. Glaring, she edges away from its spot on the table, and turns to look at better fruits. 

She spots a basket of round, red and _shiny_ . Tail swaying, she takes a sniff ( _sweet, fresh_ ). Grabs it. She moves to eat it, but a shadow casts over her face. She stops, and looks up to see the tall, hooved man behind the table looming over her.

“And what do you think you’re doing, little one?” he asks, squinting down at Catra. He is old, with a graying beard and thinning hair. His arms and hands, propped on the table as he leans over, are all creaky joints and rickety bones ( _she could easily knock him down and run_ ), but still he stands tall, like an ancient willowy tree.

His voice holds no sharpness, but still, she hunches, and holds her shiny fruit closer to her body. “It was just lying there. I found it first,” she says, defensively. 

The old man hums. “Indeed you did,” he taps on the table, consideringly, before he continues, “but you can’t take something from a store just because. Other people had to work hard for that apple to get here. Someone had to grow it in an orchard in Plumeria, then they had to hire a caravan to bring it to Bright Moon. My grandson had to take a boat to Bright Moon to get that basket of apples for me.”

Catra has never heard of any of those places, but from the tone of the old man, they must be far away from here. “That sounds like a lot of work for a bunch of fruit,” she comments, dubious.

“Ah, but many people find joy from tasting it! Seeing my customers happy is worth the effort,” he smiles. He hums again, “You’ll have to pay me coin, one copper, to be exact, if you want to keep that apple you have…” he must have seen something on her face ( _confusion_ ), because he adds, “... but you look like you don’t have any on you, huh?”

She shakes her head. She knows what coin is, has heard it clinking in pouches of passers-by in the Woods amidst talks of nonsense terms _taxes_ , _mercenaries_ and _recessions_. Their shininess initially drew her eyes, but she lost interest on them the moment she got to lick one. _Disgusting_ , so she threw it away.

To exchange food with shiny rocks… _what a strange concept_. 

For a moment, she regrets throwing away the coin, but she shakes her head. _Whatever, she doesn’t need a stupid apple anyway_. She motions to put it back, grouchily, but the old man waves her off.

“Since it’s your first time in this market, you can keep that apple for free, but next time, don’t just take things from the stalls here, okay?” he winks at her. “Us Thaymorians need all the coin we can get to survive.” 

_Stupid people-rules_ , Catra thinks, uncharitably, but she grudgingly nods to end the conversation. _Finally_ , she can eat her fruit.

She bites, canines piercing into its red flesh.

“How is it?” the old man looks at her expectantly.

“... Good.” Juice dribbles down from her mouth. After finishing the whole fruit, she wipes the juice away with her arm. Then, she remembers the manners Bow insistently taught her (“You’re supposed to say ‘thank you’ when someone does something nice to you! _”_ he said, every time he gave her candy. It sounded familiar, somehow, so she eventually caved). “... Thank you. For the apple,” she mumbles.

The old man beams at her. “Glad you like it! Now, off you go, and no trouble from you, you hear me?”

She grumbles out an agreement before scampering off. 

For the rest of the day, Catra looks at the other stalls. She is tempted to take every shiny thing she finds, but she stays her hand ( _stupid old man might bother her about it_ ), so she just mentally note down the things she wants to buy when she gets coin.

How can she get coin, though?

***

“A job?”

“Yeah, that’s how my dads get coin,” Bow says. With Bow’s archery practice done for the day, they lounge around, lazily, in the clearing. Bow is lying under the shade of a tree. “They look at artifacts and write papers for other people to read.”

Tail swinging idly, Catra considers that from her perch on the tree's sturdier branch. “I’m good at looking at stuff, but I don’t think I can write.” She can recognize a few written words, like sugar and flour, from the times she had to scavenge for baking ingredients in some funny rock-buildings Madame Razz showed her. The scribbles and markings on the stalls of Thaymor were lost to her, though. “Can’t I just take coins from stupid travelers?” 

“No,” Bow says, firmly, “that’s _stealing_. What did we say about stealing?” He looks at her expectantly.

Catra sighs, and grumbles out, “it’s bad.” _But it’s so easy_ is left unsaid.

“That’s right,” Bow nods approvingly. “Don’t worry, Catra! Being a historian is just one type of job. We’ll find one that fits you.” He takes out a pad of paper and his pen from his pack. “We just need to figure out your mar- ku- market-” he stops, face scrunched in effort, then slowly draws out from his mouth, “ _mar-ket-a-ble_ skills.”

“My what-now?” Catra squints at Bow in confusion. "Is this another nerd thing?"

“Things you can do that other people find useful,” Bow clarifies. “For example, I can make all kinds of super-cool arrows and shoot them really well!”

Catra rolls her eyes at the boast before tapping her chin in mock-thought. “Hmmm… well, I’m good at not having a dumbface, unlike you,” she smirks at Bow’s pout, “I’m not slow, and my eyes, ears, and nose actually work.” 

It’s Bow’s turn to roll his eyes, but he starts writing. “Sharp senses, smart… okay, anything else that comes to mind?”

She inspects her claws, casually. “I’m also good at scaring the _shit_ out of stupid travelers, too.”

A scandalized gasp from Bow. “Catra! _No swearing!_ ” he scolds, though he continues to write.

“But _shit_ ” she draws out the curse and relishes Bow’s flinch “is such a funny word.” Every swear word she knows, she learned from her victims’ fearful screams. She takes delight in repeating them all to Bow’s baby ears and watching him squirm.

“My dads would wash your mouth if they hear you say that, just like what they did with Chariot,” Bow shudders, “His tongue could only taste soap for a week.”

“Good thing you’re not my brother then,” Catra snickers at his melodrama. 

Bow sticks his tongue out at her. “Yeah, yeah, you’re too cool to be related to me,” he waves his hands dismissively. “Anyway, back to the topic at hand,” he taps his pad in emphasis, “anything else you’re good at?” 

Catra squints her eyes in thought. _What has the Woods taught her?_ “I don’t get lost in the Woods. And I can catch food. I’m decent at foraging, too, thanks to Madame Razz.”

He writes that all down. 

Bow looks over his list. “Okay, we have: sharp senses, smart, sneaky, intimidating, good sense of direction, hunting, foraging… What else can we add?” he asks, before he gasps. Sparkles appear on his eyes ( _oh no_ ). “How could I forget?” he grins, “you’re also good at being _adorable_.”

At the term, she bristles. Ears flat, she scowls, “ _shut up, Bow_.” His sparkly look persists, so she grounds out, “I will destroy you, your bow, and then break _every single arrow_ in this clearing.”

Despite the threat, Bow laughs. He keeps laughing for another few seconds, so Catra snaps, “ _Are you done?_ ”

“Okay, okay, I’ll stop.” He coughs out one last laugh before he goes back to his pad. “Alright, out of everything, ‘hunting’ seems like the best job for you.” Tearing out a page, he shows her a doodle of her, an angry face with pointed ears. Large fangs. Muscled body with a strangely-defined abdomen. Sharp claws. Her irritation dies down at the sight of the ( _cool_ ) drawing. “I mean, you do like killing stuff,” he grimaces at his last sentence. “Maybe you can sell the meat you find in that market?”

Catra lights up at the thought of catching prey. “That can work,” she grins, then, teasingly, adds, “as long as you don’t fire another one of your dumb arrows at me again.”

Bow groans. “It’s been _two years_. When are you going to let that go?”

“Never,” she answers automatically, “You’ll have to give me a billion chocolate bars before I ever forgive you.” 

“You’re so mean,” Bow pouts at her, before his sparkly eyes come back, “but, it’s okay. I know that’s just how you show your love for me!” 

Now, it’s her turn to groan. “Ew, get over yourself.” Bow’s ( _gross_ ) looks persists, so she tacks on, “I’m only here for the candy, not because I like you!” 

“Don’t worry, Catra! I’ll visit you a _billion_ times!” he promises. “For _candy purposes_ , of course.” He has the audacity to _wink_ at her.

She buries her face ( _she’s not blushing, damnit!_ ) and grounds out her last line of defense, “We. Are. Not. Friends.”

“Awwww, you’re even cuter when you’re embarrassed!” Bow coos.

The tree drops a fuzzy worm onto Catra’s mane, and that is the last straw. She lets out a strangled yowl and pounces at Bow. “ _I’m not cute!_ ” she screeches.

The rest of the afternoon is spent play-fighting and ribbing each other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we see wildling!Catra's first brush with society. Thaymor is a neighbor of the Woods, so she was bound to stumble upon it eventually.
> 
> This chapter was a challenge to write because 1) I had to decide what social norms Catra has lost, 2) how do you explain economics and market forces to an 8-year old?, and 3) tone issues. I tend to veer to the lighter take of things when I write stories, but I don't want to make this fic too light. Catra is a stranded war orphan with no caretaker to speak of, after all. It's a miracle (thnx Whispering Woods) she's alive and functional. 
> 
> Bow, as Catra's sole connection to modern civilization, has taken it upon himself to teach her manners and morality (sort of how Steven was Peridot's human mentor). Their interactions are so fun to write, and I get carried away. It's such a goldmine of fluff and comedy.


	5. his house is in the village, though (pt. 2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a kit buys some apples and starts a rumor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> back again! gosh, I had to do some research on fictional children who were raised in the wild to determine Catra's power levels. I found Conan from Future Boy Conan, Wolf from Kipo, and Tarzan. They are my current yardsticks for Catra. I don't want Catra to be too unbelievable, after all.

She spends the next few days looking for a buck, trailing it across the Woods, and then tearing off its jugular before it could so much as lift a hoof. 

She sees to it that her kill was done relatively near Thaymor, and also far, far away from Bow’s regular stomping grounds.

Now, she just needs something to help her haul the bulky carcass. Praying for the blessing of the Woods, she trims down long slender branches from the nearby trees with her claws. She then tears out a bundle of creeping vines from said trees and uses it to lash together the fallen branches into a makeshift sled. 

After placing the carcass on it, she ties a long piece of vine to its front-facing side and _pulls_.

Grunting, she treks through the Woods, carefully but hurriedly, before the carcass can attract opportunistic scavengers, or worse, larger predators.

_This better be worth it._

***

Turns out, in a village of two-legged grass-eaters, deer carcasses are not in demand.

“I’m sorry,” the stall owner (the second one Catra asked today) says. Like the other passers-by, he looks at the carcass behind her queasily. “We don’t really eat that… kind of thing here… ” he trails off nervously. At her glare, he quickly adds, “maybe you can try the Laughing Swann Inn?” he points to a towering mushroom hut within their sight, “I’m sure a lot of their customers ask for…” he blanches, “... meat. Since they’re not from around here and all.”

Catra begrudgingly nods and grumbles out “thanks for the tip” before dragging her wooden sled away from the stall. The crowd parts before her, eager to avoid the carcass.

She hears the owner breathe out a sigh of relief.

***

True to the stall owner’s word, the innkeeper was very much interested in the buck carcass, giving Catra a small bag of coins in exchange for it. She doesn’t really know how many coins she was supposed to get for such a large haul of meat, but the bag felt hefty enough. She’ll ask Bow about it when she wanders into his clearing again, whenever that is.

She hopes there is enough coin in the bag to buy a whole basket of apples from the old man’s stall. Madame Razz can surely bake the fruit into a pie.

Wanting to free up her hands, she drags her now-empty sled to the Woods-facing edge of Thaymor. She ties it to a sturdy tree trunk before collapsing into a tired lump on the grass. Hauling the carcass to Thaymor had taken two days of non-stop pulling across uneven terrain. She is drained.

(On the way to Thaymor, she had begged the Woods to shift her closer to the village, even if just a tiny bit. Its only response was a breeze that ruffled her hair)

She lays on the grass for a while before she is up for her jaunt to the market. Just as she pulls herself up, however, she freezes. 

A faint rumble (distant and _familiar_ ) creeps into her pointed ears, which swivel to the part of the Woods further east. Her whole body stills. Tension seeps into her muscles as the noise slowly crescendos, until she cannot take it anymore. She darts into the cover of the Woods and scales the tallest tree within her sight.

Hidden in the foliage, she focuses her eyes onto the edge of the Woods.

She spots the enormous beast emerging from the foliage, thick green-gray carapace groaning as it creeps into the village. Feet gripping the earth, it leaves torn grass and upturned dirt along its path. Opaque, pupil-less eyes sightlessly fix themselves to the village. Rage, hunger, desperation, glee—she cannot read any of them on the beast ( _cold, mindless_ ). It unnerves her.

On the beast’s flank was a familiar mark: a pair of blood-red leathery wings. She has seen this mark before, pinned on a tree and riddled with arrows. 

(Maybe Bow, soft and friendly Bow, was never a prey, after all)

She is rooted to her perch. Morbidly fascinated, she cannot look away as the beast barrels straight to the square. By now, the villagers have noticed its arrival; many of them are fleeing into their mushroom huts. Doors and windows, flimsy compared to the beast but reassuring nonetheless, slam shut.

The beast’s hind opens up and from its belly spills out five two-legged creatures. Smooth and faceless-green, they sport dull-gray armor and carry around short, black sticks. Slung on their shoulders are strange-shaped shafts of dark metal.

The creatures stomp around, shouting and threateningly waving their sticks in the air as sick-green sparks crackle out from their tips. The villagers who were too slow, too late to hide— they freeze, fawns in the face of a ravenous predator. 

One of the creatures ( _the leader of the pack?_ ) steps out of their loose formation. It shouts some more and sweeps its arm across the whole market. More sparks come out of the stick in its other hand.

With the threat of electricity aimed at them, none of the villagers move as another one of the creatures starts pouring all the stuff on the stalls (trinkets, fruits, pastries) into the large sack it is carrying around. 

None dares, except for a tall, old man ( _oh, he’s the one from the fruit stall_ ), who approaches the leader of the pack with a slow, steady gait. The creature’s body tenses at the movement. It puts up its black, sparking stick in between itself and the old man.

The old man raises his voice, pleading but strong, and gestures to his people, who are now huddling together. The leader of the pack aims its stick at the old man and shouts back. It lords its height over the old man, but still the old man does not back down, even when the creature’s stick is already pressed to his chest. More shouts come from the creature, and then—

Sick-green lightning grips the old man’s body. A seizure, a cry, eyes wide, mouth foaming. One long (hour?) second passes, and the old man goes down. The creature gives the limp body a swift kick to the side.

He twitches, but he does not get up. There is silence, save for the shuffling of items in the stalls.

Someone in the crowd starts crying. Their sob echoes across Thaymor amidst the dead air. Catra wonders if the sound came from the old man’s grandson, if this is the first time he’s seen someone close to death. She is no stranger to it, for there is plenty of death in the Woods, but she has never seen it hovering its touch over a person before ( _or has she?_ ).

Would she cry the same way if Madame Razz were to fall before her? 

( _She knows the old woman is too crazy to go down, but what if,_ what if)

She watches one of the creatures finish feeding the sacks of goods into the enormous beast ( _rumbling, still, as if it was unaware of its surroundings_ ). It removes its smooth head, and reveals a fleshy, sweaty face with matted hair ( _oh, the creature is human. Soft, dull, slow human_ ). Breathless, it wipes its face with a cloth on its hand as it steps into the belly of the beast. The other creatures eventually march back into the beast as well, sticks ( _are they strong without the sticks?_ ) still pointed at the shivering crowd. The beast’s hind closes up after them.

A roar from the beast echoes out, before it ( _clumsily, rigidly, stupidly_ ) crawls back into the Woods.

She sees the crowd slowly circle around the fallen old man. Some of them carry his limp form into one of the mushroom huts. She looks away, and dives into the trees.

She stalks, and politely requests the Woods to _twist_.

***

The transport crawls along a beaten, makeshift path they found two days ago. A lucky and rare find, what with the princess-damned woods being a deformed mess of space. Who knows how long they can rely on its presence before it disappears?

The risk of getting lost is worth their haul, though. His crew will be swimming in money and favors once they sell off the goods in the blackmarket. In the Horde, money is power and power is survival (and he intends to do _more_ than just survive).

Inside, he eats, greedily, but he is careful not to eat _too much_. He promised an arm and leg to get the Captain to authorize a ‘scouting mission’ with this transport on short notice. The transport itself was shit, but it is one of the fastest (and cheapest) units they have, on account of its lightweight ( _paltry_ ) armor. 

They didn’t need that much defense and firepower for this errand, anyway. Thaymor was a backwater town with spineless bumpkins. He only needed to show a bit of muscle, and, except for a bit of a hiccup, they all fell in line quickly.

It is just 18:00, but already, it looks like midnight has already fallen around them, what with the thickening canopy blocking the few remaining skylight. Their driver already had to turn on the headlights just to get a good enough visual of their path.

The others are nibbling their ration bars. They look away from him as he savors a particularly juicy red fruit. _Good_.

A jerk, and he is dislodged from his banquet. The transport had halted its trek.

“ _What the hell?_ ” he spits out. Wiping the juice from his chin, He stands up and marches to the driver’s seat at the front.

The driver winces, and rubs her neck. “Sorry, boss. Looks like some trees fell while we were in Thaymor. It’s blocking the path.”

Peering into the window, he sees the messy foliage of the felled trees. Still attached to their jagged stumps, they had broken off a yard or two above the ground. He looks at a side window to see if the transport can go around the trees, instead. 

The driver must have read his mind, because she says, “With limited visuals, I don’t think it would be wise to go off-road, boss.”

He curses. “Fuck, fuck, _fuck_.” They can’t take their eyes off the road, not when it can disappear tomorrow. It will cost him his actual limbs if he doesn’t pay back the Captain soon, and with perishables in their haul, time is of the essence. 

He takes a deep breath. “Fine. You three,” he barks to the idle grunts, “get out there and chop those damn trees down.”

“B-but sir,” one of them stammered out. They look like they’re going to piss their pants at any moment.

He does not have the patience to hear their excuses. “I’m the fucking boss here, and I say: Get. Out.” 

Reluctantly, the grunts hopped out through the tailgate, an engineering corp chainsaw and flashlights in hand. Satisfied, he goes back to his corner of the transport, and waits for the rev of the chainsaw to start. 

He waits some more, but it never comes.

The air is chilly.

***

Later that night, there are screams, blood-curdling and sharp. They travel past the borders of the Woods under the guidance of the howling wind. Many wake up from their homes with a shiver before falling back into their uneasy dreams.

In the morning, the people of Thaymor will find their wares strewn about the square. Although most will get all of their inventory back completely, one of their own ( _whose grandfather is still recovering from yesterday, the poor man_ ) will realize that one of his baskets is missing. He will also find a bag of coins buried under the cucumbers of another basket. 

They will remember the screams from the Whispering Woods the night before and mutter amongst themselves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things I googled extensively for this chapter:
> 
> 1) what's that wooden flat thing you drag across land to transport goods? a sled. I kept bouncing between platform and a land-raft, until 'sled' came to me this morning u_u  
> 2) what can stop a tank in a forest? It was either a ditch or an abatis. I figured a hole in the ground is harder to explain than an abatis, which is a structure made of fallen trees. Thank you, youtube, for showing me how to make one.
> 
> I realize that the kingdoms in-show had little to no military development whatsoever, which is fair since they already have the magical princess powers to flip a tank over. Catra doesn't have those elemental powers, though, so she'll have to rely on the Woods and pre-WW1 tactics to deal with the Horde. 
> 
> Tell me what you guys think! Are Catra's stats and relative niceness too unbelievable?


	6. between the woods and frozen lake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a kit hunts for a present

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was not part of my outline, but I realized that I had to include it. Good news is that this was fun to write and research for! 
> 
> The expected number of chapters just keep increasing, so I just removed it for now u_u Current estimate is that it will take 4 more chapters to complete this fic
> 
> Lastly, thank you, guys, for the feedback in the last chapter as well! :) Ya'll raise a lot of good points about Catra's og stats and her upbringing's effects.

One paw after another, she is careful not to make a sound. Damp soil shifts under her with each step, but the large, fat bird does not turn its head. Her ears pick up its insistent dirt-scratches and pecks. With the grass too sparse and short to cover her, she cautiously stalks closer.

Out of nowhere, the bird pauses. It looks up from its foraging, head jerking to the side. Belly pressed to the ground and all four legs coiled, she, too, stills. 

The next moments pass by slowly. Her legs uncoil themselves just as the bird’s long, slender, scaled legs bend down. At the same time, its striped wings move to snap open. It is a twitch away from flight. 

She aims high, and pounces. Long, tainted claws catch the bird’s feathery thigh mid-flight. Gracelessly, they both slam to the ground. The bird quickly staggers up, and desperately flaps its wide wings as it tries to kick her away. Its primary feathers slap against her face, causing her to flinch momentarily. She closes her eyes and digs her claws further into its flesh. She waits.

Eventually, the bird tires. Its wingbeats falter and its kicks grow weaker, until all that is left is its panting. Opening her eyes, she crawls across its body until she reaches its curved neck. Wicked fangs pierce into flesh easily as she bites down. Warm, delicious blood leaks into her mouth, which starts to water as the bird gradually deflates, its life slipping away. It stills.

It is with wild abandon that she starts tearing into the breast of the carcass. Thick, juicy strips of meat slip into her gullet, sating her ravenous hunger little by little. Finally, after miles of searching, of treading through rivers and streams, of prowling across the deep Woods, of enduring _days_ of hunger, she has found this large bird. Now she can enjoy its taste, and… and…

There was another reason, far more than just hunger ( _why else would she venture out so far from her territory?_ ). She cannot find it.

She stops eating and inspects her kill. It shares her size, but has less than a quarter her weight. _Why did she have to hunt for such a big bird?_

Something tickles the back of her throat; she hacks, and spits out feathers clumped together by blood and saliva. She stares at it, and something sparks in her mind.

 _Feathers!_ She needed feathers for… for some strange flying sticks. _Arrows?_ And those go with… 

_Bow!_ She had noticed that his arrows were wearing out. His birthday is coming up, so she had gone out looking for a bird to take down, one with long, sturdy feathers for fletching arrows. She had yet to encounter such a bird in her hunt, so she traveled past her usual grounds and searched. And searched. And then searched some more until she found it here.

She does not know where she is now. She casts her focus underground, and the answering thrum in her gut tells her that she is still within the Woods ( _a relief_ ). 

Carcass in hand, she walks to the direction her instincts point her to.

***

Her pace is fast. Only stopping to sleep or drink, she does not hunt. Instead, she takes small bites from the carcass to keep her gnawing gut at bay. She gradually empties the carcass of its entrails, meat, and bones over the course of her journey, until there is only a cape of skin and feathers in her hands.

She stops by a stream, shallow enough for her comfort, to wash away the fat and dried blood still clinging onto the underside of the birdskin ( _and on herself_ ). Smooth, red ribbons trail away from her body as she scrubs. 

***

She reaches the clearing a week after catching the bird. 

The skylight shines with its afternoon intensity. Bow is there, as usual, shooting his ragged arrows at his pinned-up target. However, his stance looks unusually lethargic today. Eyes that would usually be pin-pricked-focused are now wandering from side to side. He is distracted.

Most of his arrows still land close to the center, despite his state of mind. Bow’s intermittent groans and ‘tsk’s give away his dissatisfaction, though.

Catra goes up behind him. Mind still on his abysmal performance, he does not turn to acknowledge her presence. 

“I know who I’m not hiring for my next hunting party,” she says out loud, just as he is about to nock an arrow.

Bow jumps, dropping his weapons. He turns around to meet Catra’s smirk, which falters in confusion at the palpable relief on his face. 

“Catra!” Bow cries. His hands reach out to her and grip her shoulders shakily. Catra stiffens at the contact, but she does not bat his hands away like she would usually do. Her hands are currently occupied by the bird carcass, after all.

( _She isn’t worried for Bow_ )

“What’s up with you? You look like somebody snapped your bowstring in front of your eyes,” Catra keeps her tone teasing and light.

“I thought you died! You were gone for a _month_ ,” Bow stresses as he shakes her. 

Her tail twitches in surprise. _A month?_ Catra scrunches up her nose. Ever since meeting Bow, she has never gone far from the clearing for that long. She hadn’t noticed so much time had passed in the Woods.

( _Has she missed his birthday?_ )

Eyes starting to glisten, Bow goes on, “I kept waiting for you to appear, but you never did. I thought something happened to you, or- or-” His grip on her shoulders tightens, as if he is afraid she might disappear.

Before he could spiral further (and Woods-forbid, _cry_ ), Catra interrupts him, “Whoa there, arrow boy. I’ve lived in the Woods since forever, and nothing there has killed me yet.” She gives a cocky smirk. “Have some faith in me.”

Her reassurance must have worked, because tension slowly bleeds away from Bow’s body and he lets go of her shoulders, albeit reluctantly. He knows she isn’t fond of physical contact. “I know that, but you’re my friend.” Bow frowns. “I’ll always worry when I don’t hear from you.”

Catra rolls her eyes at his earnestness. “Whatever, I guess you’re my friend, too, or something,” she mutters, just loud enough for Bow to hear. Before he could latch onto that embarrassing utterance, though, she thrusts the birdskin at his face and says, “Anyway, while I was out in the Woods, I got you this for your birthday.”

***

Empty pits soullessly stare at him. Below them, a beak gapes out a silent wail. There is a vicious tear that interrupts the neck. Only a desperate thread-like sinew bridges the head with the rest of the large, deflated bird. Its chest has been split open cleanly, but the marks there… something must have broken through its ribs and _ripped its heart out_.

Bow screams.

***

Plenty of placating and reassurances (“No, the bird didn’t feel a lot of pain when it died,” she lied) were thrown at Bow’s way. Catra had to dispose of the head before the ungrateful boy would even so much as look at her present.

Finally rid of hysterics, Bow gulps, before gingerly taking the birdskin. “Thanks, Catra. I’m going to make so many arrows with this.” He perks up at that thought, but his smile remains shaky. “Sorry about the freakout awhile ago.”

 _What a baby._ “You should’ve seen the look on your face,” she snickers, though she is still a bit put out with his initial reaction. She spent a month to find that bird, damnit.

She takes the next few minutes to hurl jabs at his queasiness and watches in relief as the air around them loosens up.

They spend the rest of the afternoon like they usually would. After Bow carefully folds the birdskin into a satchel, he goes back to his archery practice. He looks more at ease, now, and his aim has significantly improved. He keeps sneaking a glance at her from time to time, though, as if to check that she is still here with him. Meanwhile, Catra picks a spot a little ways off to lie down and bask in the skylight. Before closing her eyes, she pops a fruit drop from Bow into her mouth and savors its sweetness. A breeze passes by.

( _She has missed this_ )

***

She also spends the next day in the clearing ~~to keep Bow from worrying~~. That is when Bow invites her to his house for his birthday, ten days from now ( _oh, looks like her present came early, after all_ ).

“My dads want to meet you,” he says, as he rubs his neck timidly, before he shakes himself and continues.“I promise it’ll be fun! They’re gonna bake a cake! With lots of icing! And after lunch, we can look at the cool First Ones’ tech in the museum, or I can show you my other arrows,” Bow excitedly lists out. 

In the two years she has known him, Catra has never been inside Bow’s house. She can spot it from the occasional tree-perch whenever she passes by the area, but she has not bothered to approach its looming, vine-riddled walls. Their sole hang-out spot has always been just the clearing. 

(Entering his home feels like an acknowledgement of their friendship. She would rather not admit to her failure of keeping people at arm’s length)

Bow must have sensed her apprehension, because he starts wheedling and begging. All the while, he dons his sad, puppy-dog eyes, which does the opposite of convincing her. She lets him squirm under her flat look.

Just as she is about to say out loud her refusal, Bow whines, “Come on, Catra. You owe me for up and vanishing. I was really worried for you, you know.”

Catra stiffens, a stab of guilt in her heart at the reminder. Bow is pouting now. She looks away. Then sighs. _Ugh, fine._ Ears flattened to her skull, she crosses her arms and mutters, “Five slices of cake. And they have to be huge and topped with a lot of icing. _A lot_.”

Immediately, Bow’s dejected look disappears. In its place are his sparkling eyes. “Yes!” he whooped. "We're gonna have a Best Friends Duo party in my house!"

“I’m only doing this for the _cake_ ,” Catra grumbles. "And I told you before, that name is stupid!"

“Whatever you say,” he sing-songs.

***

Bow’s birthday party ( _and the cake he promised_ ) is still days away, so Catra pays Madame Razz a visit. She has been craving for a sweet meal, stronger than just candy, to banish the lingering taste of blood and meat in her mouth. She must have chewed through a horde of prey this past month.

(She counts the moons’ cycles religiously as she walks through the Woods)

Madame Razz welcomes her with her cheerful grin. “Hello there, dearie! Are you up for another round of baking?”

Her tail swishes at the thought of the warm oven. Slouching, she grunts out, “Yeah, whatever. Let’s get this over with.”

***

They decide on tarts. Having graduated from berry-crusher, Catra is in charge of making the dough today while Madame Razz prepares the filling. From one corner of the kitchen, the old woman starts skinning the leaf-green, fuzzy berries she picked yesterday.

On the other side, Catra combines flour, sugar, eggs, and butter in a ceramic bowl and beats the mixture with a wooden spatula. The flour and sugar, they had taken from the cache under the large, crumbling statue of a lady. The eggs, Catra had stolen from a random, unguarded nest. Only the butter came from Thaymor, paid with coin from the Laughing Swan. The old woman must be using some sort of magic to keep it fresh and solid in her pantry.

Her arms start aching by the time a smooth, sticky dough forms in the bowl.

She snatches the rolling pin from under a tower of pots and pans. Taking a handful of leftover flour, she dusts her counter, the dough, and the pin before unloading the dough from the bowl.

A sweet aroma wafts into her nose as she starts flattening the dough. Madame Razz has started simmering the greenish berry pulp over the stove. Catra silently hums in excitement.

***

Six berry tarts are ready in the oven. One is already as wide as one of Madame Razz’s rimmed lenses, so they only take one piece each for teatime. The old woman wraps another two pieces in cloth for Catra to take with her later. The last two are reserved for Mara and Adora.

(“Loo-Kee won’t get a single bite because he made a mess out of my pots and pans,” Madame Razz declares sternly. Catra nods in understanding.)

Madame Razz fills the air with chatter on some strange mushroom she found in the Woods as they eat and drink. As usual, Catra just hmm’s and nods in the appropriate places, letting the old woman’s scratchy voice wash over her. She is warm. In her mouth, there is the sweet tanginess of the green berry filling and the bitter aftertaste of tea. 

***

Eventually, night falls in the Woods. It is time for her to go to the tree-hollow above the hut to rest. Catra takes her tarts and reaches for the rusty door handle, when Madame Razz, voice clear and even, calls out, “Catra, be careful not to get lost in the Woods again.”

Confused, Catra stops and turns around. She squints at the old woman before saying, “What are you talking about? I’ve never gotten lost since I ended up here. I mean, I always find your hut,” she pauses in consideration, “… eventually.”

The strange woman just steadily looks back at her. The silence between them thickens, until Madame Razz says, “Yes, yes,” she waves her hands in dismissal. “Of course, dearie. Silly me!” She chuckles at herself.

Catra shrugs, before bidding Madame Razz goodbye. 

***

In the morning, Catra wakes up amongst her collection of trinkets in the tree-hollow above Madame Razz's hut. She sifts through the piles of mementos from her travels until she finds her sketchbook and a short stub of charcoal. She turns to an empty page and draws wicked fangs and long claws.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things I had to google for this chapter:  
> 1) Best feather for fletching arrows? The first result was 'turkey'  
> 2) Turkey habitat? Forests with some clearings. The Woods in Catra's area is dense with trees; barely any clearings are in it, so I assume that the ideal turkey habitat is far from her, probably close to another edge of the Woods  
> 3) How to hunt turkeys? You need high stealth stats. Apparently they have really good eyesight and a 270 degree range of vision (even without turning its head!)  
> 4) Turkey vs cat? There are some videos on youtube :) though, I ended up consulting other hunting videos of larger cats e.g. lynxes, servals, caracals.  
> 5) How to make tarts? Thank you, Binging with Babish, for the recipe
> 
> Thanks for reading! What do you guys think of this chapter?


	7. to watch his woods fill up with snow (pt. 1)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a kit attends a family lunch

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We have another multi-part chapter! Dialogue scenes are hard.  
> Thanks to fallensummer for proofreading this chapter!

“... don’t break anything, don’t talk about anything violent, and most importantly, never ever ev-”

“-mention archery, bows, or arrows. Yeesh, I get it,” Catra says exasperatedly as they make their way to Bow’s house. “You’ve been saying that since this morning.”

At Bow’s request, they had met in the clearing at the first light of dawn. The whole morning was then spent on teaching Catra basic ( _arbitrary_ ) human house rules. Normally, she would have grouched and jabbed at him for the early call time, but he had also given her clean, new clothes from his own wardrobe that sort of fit her. A rare find, considering that children-sized travelers don’t usually pass through the Woods.

She fiddles with the fabric of her new outfit as they walk. The plain-red tunic is loose enough to give her body fur space to breathe. The dark pants are a bit too big for her, though, and were tailored with human boys in mind. She had to hike them up past her waist and tighten her new belt to keep them from dragging on the ground. Bow also had to cut out an uneven hole for her tail to slip through.

“Sorry,” Bow says, hand rubbing his neck sheepishly, “it’s just really, _really_ important that they don’t find out that I’ve been secretly going behind their backs and learning how to fight.” His voice gradually goes up by an octave as he explains. “Bookworm Bow needs to be real for them.”

Catra narrows her eyes at his wound-up form. “What do they think you’re doing in the Woods then?”

He deflates. “... That I’ve been studying botany with you,” he mutters, hunched and arms crossed.

“I don’t know anything about this _botany_ thing.” Catra furrows her brows at the unfamiliar word. “Can’t you just tell them to fuck off and do what you want?” 

“They’re my _parents_!” Bow shoots back, scandalized, as if that explains everything.

Catra rolls her eyes. _People_. “If they really wanted to keep you away from archery, they shouldn’t have named you _Bow_ ,” Catra points out, “they should’ve stuck you with Book, Teacup, Nerd-”

“It’s a family naming tradition from Lance’s side,” Bow sighs. “Trust me, George has been griping about it since Lance named my eldest brother _Halberd_.”

“Halberd sounds like a badass name,” Catra comments, “better than Bow.”

Bow pouts. “Hey! Bow is a- ” He freezes. 

Catra stops with him. In front of them are tall, wooden doors flanked by pillars claimed by withered creeping vines. A round glass-stained window interrupts its sturdy frame at its center. Craning her neck further up, she sees a roof hanging over them and casting shadows over the maw of the house.

 _So this is where Bow lives_. Catra feels her tail tucking into her small frame. Her ear twitches. She has never seen such a large building before. It looks… monstrously enormous, even if the trees that cradle the house obstruct its full body from her view. Her neck starts cramping. “Are your dads giants or something?” Catra asks in a low voice.

Bow does not utter an answer. Instead, he breathes in deeply and marshals himself. Face set in determination, he knocks at the door. “Dad! I’m here with my friend,” he calls out.

Silence, then sounds of a scuffle and muffled steps seep through wood. Rusted handles impatiently jangle, until it finally clicks. The thick, sturdy doors give way, and out comes Bow’s sparkling eyes, framed by rectangular glasses and set on an older face—dark-skinned, with litters of wrinkles sprinkling around his eyes and cheeks. 

“Hello, Bow and Bow’s friend! You guys are just in time for lunch!” the man says with a blinding grin. Just like his house, he is tall, enough that she has to crane her head up to see his face. Dark brown braids of hair, unlike Bow’s shorter curls, fall behind his head as he looks down to meet Bow’s eyes.

“Hi, dad,” Bow mumbles in reply, looking down on his shuffling feet, before his hand gestures towards her. “This is Catra, my friend from the Woods? Catra, this is Lance, my dad.” 

At the introduction, Lance trains his gaze on Catra, whose fur stands on their ends at the force of his undivided attention. Her body moves to hide itself behind Bow’s fidgeting form, but she forces it to stand its ground. Her tail curls around herself. “Hello, uh,” _Bow didn’t tell her what to call his dads during the_ morning orientation, “Mr. Bow’s Dad.”

Silence meets her greeting. Instead of a response, Lance keeps staring at her, eyes darting on her mane, clothes, and tail. She muffles the instinct to raise her hackles and back away from the relentless gaze. She settles on staring back at him and slowly coiling her body.

“Hey, uh, dad, is there something wrong?” Bow asks cautiously.

Lance snaps out of his trance and breaks away from their staring contest. He shakes his head, before brightly saying, “Oh, nothing! Sorry about that. Come in!” He steps aside to let her and Bow into the house. “And you can call me Lance, Catra.” He grins at her reassuringly.

Catra nods at him warily. He’s still looking at her, albeit with less intensity. “Got it. Lance. Thank you for-” _what were the words Bow told her to say?_ “-for inviting me to your home,” she finishes stiffly. She makes sure to give him a wide berth as she passes through the door.

Lance seems to ignore her discomfort, and barrels on, “We’re so excited to meet a friend of Bow! He’s always been a shy kid, and we didn’t think there was another child his age in the Woods, so hearing of you was a surprise! A good kind, of course,” he winks at her. “Why, I didn’t even know about you until a few weeks back,” He gives Bow a pointed look.

Catra tears her eyes from his dad to train them at Bow, who looks like he was dropped in front of a prowling tiger. He smiles shakily.

***

The first thing she notices is the melting pot of sweet, salty, and savoury in the air. She softly inhales the scent as her ears pick up sounds of stirring and crackling.

Her mouth starts watering as they pass through the long hallways.

The scent only gets stronger as Lance leads them into a wide room with a long table at its center. Plenty of seats, about fourteen or fifteen pieces, are placed around it, though only four sets of plates and cutlery are set close to each other. On one of the walls was a painting of Lance and another dark-skinned man, with two graying fuzzy caterpillars resting below his nose and a shorter crop of hair. Surrounding them are thirteen smiling children of various sizes. _Oh, I can see arrow-boy there._

“Dear, the kids are here!” Lance calls out, before chuckling to himself, “Oh my, I made an accidental rhyme.” Bow, blushing, quietly huffs in embarrassment beside her.

“Coming!” a muffled reply from a closed door.

Lance ushers Bow and Catra to their seats next to each other, and a moment later, the door opens to reveal the caterpillar-faced man from the painting pushing a cart of delicious-smelling goods. He stops next to them.

Bow gulps and says to the man, “Hey, dad, this is Catra from the Woods. Catra, that’s my dad George.”

She looks up from hungrily staring at the cart to meet George’s gaze. George gives her a faint smile and says, “Pleasure to meet you, Catra. Any friend of Bow’s is welcome here. You can call me George.”

“Hello, George,” Catra parrots back as she tries to hold back her impatience. _When can she start eating?_ She can feel her belly rumbling at the proximity of food. “Thank you for inviting me to your house.”

Her tail sways as George sets down a steaming pot of thick red liquid, a bowl of pale-yellow mash, and a plate of ribs, as large as those of a boar’s. For some reason, the meat clinging to bone is goldenly browned, and it smells so much more appetizing than the flesh of a freshly killed carcass.

She is tempted to shove as many of those ribs as she can into her pockets, but Bow blocks her arm before she could reach for one. 

Lance and George settle into their own seats before Bow lets go. They dig in.

After a few minutes of filling their plates with food, Lance pipes up, “So, Catra, how did you and Bow meet?”

He is smiling, but Bow stiffens next to her. Catra is on guard. 

“He, uh,” _shot an arrow at me_ “he and I had an argument about… deer.” Catra finishes. She fiddles with the table knife. Though made of metal, it looks duller than her claws ( _which she can’t use to eat here. Stupid people rules_ ). Cutting the meat from the ribs looks to be a chore if she’s going to use it.

“We saw the same fawn and couldn’t agree on its age,” Bow elaborates quickly.

“Oh, yes, Bow did tell me you were very interested in studying wildlife,” George says, rubbing his chin. “Tell me, what’s the most interesting animal you’ve seen?”

She thinks about the question as she attempts to slice through the meat. To her surprise, the browned flesh easily gives way to dull metal. “The wolves are pretty fun to beat u-” Under the table, Bow taps her leg with his foot. “... look at, from afar. Their fur makes for a good cloak, too. Hard to skin the- I mean, find them in a market, though.”

George raises his eyebrows in surprise. “Wolves, you say?” he hums, “I think we do have a couple of books regarding their cultural significance in the Kingdom of Snows you can borrow. I know the topic isn’t hard science, but you might find it interesting nevertheless.”

Catra scrunches her nose, both at the lack of red inside the meat and at the thought of _books_. “Books sounds too ner-”

“Bulky! They’re too bulky!” Bow interrupts, rather frantically, “Catra travels a lot, so she can’t carry heavy things with her!”

“Yeah, whatever he said,” Catra says, shrugging. She forks the piece she cut out and places it in her mouth. She chews. _Wow_.

Eyes narrowed, George looks at her, then at his son. “ _Right_. In that case, you can take a look at the books whenever you stop by.” 

Catra swallows down her food, before saying, “Books aren’t for me since I don’t really know how to read.” She starts cutting another piece, before she remembers _manners_ , so she adds belatedly, “Thanks for the offer, though.”

Silence. She looks up from her food to see Lance and George, eyes wide, staring at her. She glances at Bow, who is still. “What?”

Bow laughs shakily. “We really just talk about the plants and animals we see in the Woods and trade drawings, you know?” 

The silence stretches on ( _did she slip?_ ), until Lance, changing the topic, quickly asks, “Say! How’s your grandmother? Madame Razz, was it? Bow told me you stay with her.” He gives her a polite smile. 

_Oh, I can answer that_. Bow didn’t set any rules about that topic. Catra relaxes and focuses her attention back to her plate. “I guess she looked fine the last I saw her a few days ago.” Pause. “We baked tarts.”

George looks at her, and asks evenly, “And where do you stay when you’re not with Razz?”

“In the trees,” Catra easily replies, then spoons some yellow mash into her mouth. _Duh_ , where else can she sleep?

“And you don’t have any other adult with you?” Lance asks, leaning forward. 

“Nope.” _Wow, this mash is so creamy_. She eats another spoonful.

Lance’s eyes start glistening, as if he’s about to cry. Bow shuffles on his seat uncomfortably.

The rest of lunch proceeds with light chattering that doesn't veer into Bow’s short list of dangerous topics, to the quiet relief of her seatmate. Bow’s body is still stiff with tension, but at least he has stopped fidgeting. In between small talk, though, Lance and George pepper her with strange questions.

“How often do you get to see Razz?” Once every few days, probably.

“Have you ever been to a school?” What’s a school?

“Does the name Halfmoon ring any bells to you?” Nope.

Her plate empty, she looks to her side to see Bow quietly circling his spoon around a lump of yellow mash. While the others are almost done eating, his plate is still half-full.

“Hey, are you gonna finish that?” Catra whispers to Bow.

Bow stops wearing down his seat, and smiles at her slightly. He discreetly pushes the plate to her. “Here you go. I’m too nervous to keep eating,” he whispers back. “Go crazy.”

Catra licks her lips and digs in. She manages to finish the leftovers quickly and takes a bowl of soup to wash the food down. Belly fuller, she leans back on her chair. She stays there contentedly, before the feeling of being examined pricks at her skin again. She looks across the table. “What?” she asks George and Lance, for the second time.

“Oh, nothing! I’m just glad you’re enjoying the meal!” Lance says, tone strained. He gives off a shaky laugh of his own ( _wow, he sounds like Bow_ ). “George whipped out his family recipes for this, after all! Eat as much as you want.” He smiles at her reassuringly before catching George’s eye. A silent conversation passes between them. 

A few seconds pass, and the adults are still talking to each other with their eyebrows, so Catra leans close to Bow and whispers, “I think your dads think I’m weird.” Bow buries his head into his hands.

Before Lance and George could break off from their conversation themselves, Bow stands up and exclaims, “Cake! Let’s get cake!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here we see loving parents observe an abandoned child in mounting horror. 
> 
> Things I had to google for:
> 
> 1) How to make small talk with friends of your children? Unfortunately, there was no guide on the internet u_u  
> 2) LOTR food. I took some ideas from Binging with Babish's LOTR menu (ribs and potatoes) and added tomato soup.
> 
> Hope you guys enjoyed this chapter! Please flag any issues you find in characterization and whatnot! :)


	8. to watch his woods fill up with snow (pt. 2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bow thinks about his future.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is a chapter in Bow's POV!

After swiping five hefty slices from an idle chocolate cake (and ruining the frosted “Happy Birthday, Bow!” message lovingly piped on it) in the kitchen, he had dragged Catra into his room purposefully and slammed the door shut before his parents could pull them into an ‘impromptu’ tour of the museum.

Free from his parents’ line of sight, Bow sags on the floor in relief.

“You owe me now,” Catra says, a frosting-smeared smirk in her voice. One look at the plate next to him tells him that a slice has already been taken. “I didn’t let anything slip out in front of your dads and I followed all your dumb people rules.”

_A deal’s a deal._ “I won’t call you cute for a month,” he promises. With his face melding with the wooden floorboards, his voice comes out muffled. Something lightly kicks his side, so he adds, “and you can take my red crayons.” He feels an air of smug satisfaction radiating above him.

(A part of him regrets teaching Catra the concept of bartering)

“Your room looks boring,” Catra says, jarring him from his thoughts. He hears her rifling through the messy clutter on his desk. “Show me where you keep the cool stuff,” she demands.

“And have you steal them when I’m not looking? No thanks,” he snorts. Not that there’s anything actually noteworthy enough by Catra’s standards to steal here. The most interesting objects hiding in his room are the prototype arrows he’s been working on.

Catra tsk’s, “Didn’t you say before that _sharing is caring_? Whatever, I’ll find your stash by tomorrow, with or without your help.” 

Before Bow could retort, the shuffling on his desk stops. Footsteps cross his room and end with a squeak on his bed. “Please don’t tear out my bed,” he pleads instead. 

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. I’ll keep my claws to myself,” she promises breezily. The bed starts to creak as she works up a bounce on its springy surface. “Speaking of your dads, they sure asked a lot of questions about me.” 

A good thing, Bow declares, because his dads’ fascination with Catra had distracted them from asking questions about _him_. “Well, living in the woods by yourself isn’t exactly normal, you know?” he points out.

“Madame Razz has been living in her hut before your dads could even speak,” Catra counters.

“Yeah, but she’s an _adult_ ,” he says. “Kids like us usually stay with family until they grow up. Then they take an apprenticeship somewhere or go to _university_.” He sinks further into the floor at the word. “Or they can keep staying with their family _for the rest of their lives_ , too.” This is as close as he can get to fusing with the wooden surface.

“Sounds boring,” Catra snorts. “I’ll take being alone in the Woods any day.”

_Must be nice to be free._ A pang of envy strikes at Bow’s gut. “If my dads had their way, I’d be staying with them in this house forever,” Bow mutters. “They’re so hung up on passing the library to me when I grow up.” So much so that any hint or suggestion he made contrary to their master plan for him was swiftly shut down or subtly redirected. 

“They’d kill me if they knew that I wanna fight the Evil Horde.” His hands itch for his bow, not for the first time today. Frustration leaking into his voice, he blurts out, “I don’t want to be stuck here reading books and filing papers while innocent people out there are being attacked!”

Catra stops bouncing on the bed. “Family,” the term rolls off from Catra’s tongue. He lifts his face and sees her furrowing her eyebrows, as if _family_ is a foreign concept she’s turning over in her head. “Seems like a drag,” she scoffs.

He sighs. “It is,” Bow confirms wearily, before quickly saying, “Don't get me wrong! George and Lance are great dads and I love them, but,” he grimaces, “sometimes, it’s just hard to be around them. I have to _pretend_.” These days, home feels more like a stage he has to perform on under the scrutiny of an attentive audience. Every action has already been scripted out for him in advance, and any deviation would be gently ( _and_ lovingly) corrected.

If he could, he would rather spend all his days in the Woods, away from prying eyes and expectations. He wouldn’t have to put on an act to keep anyone satisfied out there.

_Or_ , his mind supplies _, he could just run away to Bright Moon and join the military_. His dads won’t be able to push their aspirations onto his shoulders if he’s stuck in active duty.

_But you’ll break their hearts if you abandon them_ , a softer part of him counters. Worryingly, that does not seem to deter his mind from dwelling on the scenario and _enjoying_ it.

He rolls onto his back and stares at the ceiling. Is he being ungrateful? His dads have raised him and provided him with everything he could ever need. If he shatters their illusion of a perfect son, would he be spitting on what they’ve done for him his whole life?

He sighs. Maybe it would be easier if...

In the early days of their friendship, Bow had asked Catra of her siblings and parents, only to be met with a pause, then a casual “ _dunno_ ” paired with an uncaring shrug. It had left him at a loss of how to continue that conversation, until he stumbled through talking about his own family, much to his internal chagrin ( _so nice of him to brag about his family to an orphan_ , he had internally berated himself). 

Though she didn’t show any discomfort, grief, nor anger at that time, he had sworn himself off from asking her family-related questions.

An overwhelming curiosity breaks his silence on the matter. “Do you-” Bow starts, then halts. Trepidation. “Er.”

Catra rolls her eyes at him. “Just spit it out, arrow boy,” she drawls. 

Bow takes a deep breath. _Here it goes._ “Do you ever miss your family?” he asks tentatively.

Catra does not say anything for a while, only curling her tail around her thigh. She redirects her gaze to the ceiling. Bow wonders what answers she’ll find there.

An apology starts dripping from the tip of his tongue when, finally, "No," she replies, “Not really. Hard to miss something I can barely remember. Living in the Woods keeps me too busy to think about them, too.”

Pity curls his face into a soft frown. Despite the wringer his dads are putting him through, despite his growing grievances against them, he doesn’t think he can bear losing them, physically and emotionally. To not be able to remember their proud smiles and warmth… “That sucks,” he can’t help but say. “I’m sorry.” _That you completely lost your family._

For a moment, Bow worries that Catra will lash out at him for the sentiment. 

(“I don’t need your pity!” she snarls at him after he had tried to comfort her. She had been struggling to sound the alphabet written on the paper, and frustrated tears were beginning to well up in her eyes. 

“Hey, it’s okay if you don’t get it the first time,” he said soothingly. “Reading is hard!” In response, she threw the paper at him and then scaled up a tree.

“Reading is stupid. I don’t need that to survive,” she would later say an hour after she had stormed off. They never continued the lesson) 

But she does not. “It’s whatever,” she says instead, with her uncaring shrug. 

Just like before, he doesn’t know what to say, but Catra rescues him with a change of topic. “At least I don’t have to deal with parents telling me what to do.” She sends a mischievous smirk at him. Twirling an imaginary mustache with a claw, she deepens her voice and parrots, “ _Oh, Bow, please rearrange all the books on the second floor. And don’t forget to read chapters five through twenty of the Book of Lame Things by tonight._ ” 

A groan wheezes out of his lungs at the shockingly accurate reenactment ( _maybe he’s been venting far too often in the clearing_ ). “Don’t remind me. I actually have to do one of those things tomorrow.” Bow grumbles. “Academia never sleeps, as Lance would say.”

"Ugh, you've been acting all wimpy the whole afternoon," Catra says exasperatedly. She narrows her eyes at him. “Look, throwing away your life to fight for people you don’t know sounds dumb, and-”

“Didn’t you scare off those Horde soldiers when they tried to pillage Thaymor, a village of _people you don’t know_?” he points out.

“I need my customers alive and well if I want to keep making money,” she shoots back. It’s the same excuse she’s given to him ever since he had started cooing on _her display of niceness_ in Thaymor. “And I knew one guy, so there!”

She pauses to gather herself. “ _Anyway_ ,” she stresses out pointedly, as if to scold him for interrupting her, “ _I_ think it’s dumb, but it’s _your_ life to waste. You can’t just let your dads tell you what to do with it.” She throws a nearby pillow at his limp form. It bounces next to him, and he grabs it. “You gotta take charge!”

“If they try to stop you, just leave and do your soldier shit anyway. That’s what I’d do,” Catra smirks. 

To hear someone else voice out his mind’s suggestion… “It’s a good idea,” Bow mumbles into the pillow as his mind starts whirring.

“It is because I came up with it. Tell me when you stop being a chicken.” He hears footsteps shuffle towards his closet. “Hey, where are your nerd arrows?” Catra asks as she opens his closet and starts dumping his clothes onto the floor. “Did you use the bird feathers I gave you?”

***

A knock. “Bow? Catra?” George’s voice calls out from beyond the door.

“Quick! Hide the arrows!” Bow whispers frantically as he shoots up from his spot on the floor. He takes some notebooks from his desk and scatters them around their area. Meanwhile, Catra, careful with the pointy ends, shoves the pile of arrows into the underside of his bed. She picks up one of the notebooks and opens it to a page stuffed with drawings.

Bow flies to the door and opens it. “Hey, dad!” he greets with a too-wide-of-a-smile.

George raises an eyebrow at him. “Is something the matter? You’ve been acting jumpy since lunchtime.”

“Nothing, nothing at all!” Bow laughs dismissively. When it comes out shaky and nervous, he coughs. “Anyway, what’s up?”

George’s mustache twitches. “I just came by to ask if your friend wants to have dinner with us and stay the night?” he says. He does not mention Bow’s bad lie.

Bow turns to Catra, whose ears are up facing him and George even though her head is buried in the notebook. “Catra?” he asks. 

Catra puts down the notebook and looks at him. Her ears twitch, flattening to the side. _Hesitation_ , he reads. She raises an eyebrow at him. _What should I say?_

He bites his cheek in thought. On one hand, dinner means more interrogation from his parents. On the other hand, he does want to spend more time with Catra. Despite the stress the day has put his heart through, he has to admit that this birthday has been the most fun since all his brothers had left the house.

He nudges his head towards her direction encouragingly. _Up to you_.

She tilts her head. 

Behind him, his dad says, “We could use your help in finishing all the sweets we baked for Bow’s birthday.” Black ears perk up. “Moons know I made way too much for just the three of us to eat.”

He watches her make up her mind. “Why not?” Catra finally says, casually. Her face is blank and indifferent, a contrast to her lashing tail. He bites back a coo. He made a promise, after all.

***

Dinner consists of lean pork chops, roasted carrots and corn ears, and leftover tomato stew from lunch. 

His parents finally seem to have run out of questions for Catra; most of their small talk revolves around the library-museum and their work on the First Ones, to both his relief and exasperation. At least the mundane chatter gives him space to retreat into his mind and think of _Bright Moon_.

Unsurprisingly, he still catches them staring at Catra. 

Next to him, she nods along, but he can tell her mind has drifted away from the conversation as well. Nose scrunched, she is more preoccupied with trying to cut her corn cob open with a steak knife. The kernels outside remain untouched.

Bow nudges Catra’s leg with his own. When she looks at him, eyes narrowed in annoyance, he picks up his own ear of corn with his hands and exaggerates biting into the corn kernels.

Catra scowls and stops sawing into her corncob. “I knew that,” she whispers back quickly. He swallows back a tease.

The rest of the meal goes smoothly. Towards the end, when only bones and empty cobs remain on their plates, Lance exclaims, “Oh my! We still haven’t lit a candle for your birthday. You did run off before I could bring out the cake during lunch.” He gives Bow a pointed look.

He laughs sheepishly, rubbing his neck. “Sorry, dad. I guess I was too excited to show Catra my room.”

“Don’t be too hard on them, Lance,” George says while wiping his mouth with a napkin. “The kids were just _mousse-ing_ around.” He chuckles at the resulting groans from Bow and Lance. Catra looks at them blankly.

“I’ll explain it to you later,” Bow whispers to Catra, who shrugs.

Lance brings out the rest of the cake, a small candle burning atop it, from the kitchen and sets it down in front of Bow. About half of the pastry is gone already. Based on Catra’s predatory look, there won’t be anything left by tomorrow.

George dims down the room light from the side while Lance gestures for Catra to come closer. They both start singing an off-key and out-of-sync Happy Birthday song. Catra looks at them strangely before parroting the lyrics in monotone.

It’s torture to his ears, but he is happy nonetheless.

In the low light, Catra is unreadable. Shadows dance over her face to the lead of the candles. Eyebrows drawn in focus at the display. A slight frown. She catches him looking at her and gives an exaggerated roll of her eyes before sticking her tongue out at Bow. He grins back.

“Make a wish, Bow!” Lance says.

Bow takes in his dads’ shining, earnest eyes and Catra’s grouchy (but soft) face. _He is lucky_ , he thinks, _to have a loving family and a best friend_.

But he wants something more.

He blows out his birthday candle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Didn't google anything for this chapter because Bow's angst based on my own family angst! #asianlife
> 
> Bow was a bit harder to write this chapter because I rarely see fics portraying him with issues. He's usually the emotionally mature and has-it-all-together kind of character. 
> 
> What do you guys think of this chapter? :)

**Author's Note:**

> Current update schedule: at least once a week (Friday/Saturday)
> 
> what do you guys think?


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